One day when I was 19, my parents struck a deal with me. When it came time for me to study abroad, if helped my mom teach summer school, they would pay for my study abroad. It was a pretty fair deal and not to mention I thought it would be a breeze. I mean what is the big deal, they were just a bunch of 5-year-olds. I had taught Sunday school and babysat, so this had to be a piece of cake, right? Wrong.
If you think that teachers are just free daycare or that their job isn't hard, you are wrong. I learned in an hour that this was one of the hardest careers out there. I realized this because I was able to witness what most people never will from an adult point of view.
What most people see at the end of a school day is a piece of paper with macaroni glued to it or pages of letters outlined over and over again or badly drawn scribbles. What they don't see is the 5-year-old screaming and crying when they get off the bus because he had never been to school before and is now surrounded by students who don't speak the same language as he does.
They don't see the little boy who is acting out against anyone who gets near him because that's all he sees at home. They don't see the little girl who stares at her tracing sheets all day with tears running down her face because she doesn't understand and won't be diagnosed with dyslexia for another 3 years.
They don't see a child struggling with learning because he has not yet been diagnosed with ADD. They have no clue that the sheet with macaroni glued to it helped a child develop motor skills that will allow them to be able to do things like tie their shoes. They don't realize that those badly drawn scribbles were the first time some children have even held a crayon.
Teachers see it all. They see every moment from when their students step off that bus and into their classroom. From that moment on, they see the good and the bad, and they have to make sure each child learns despite of it. In many cases, they do this by using their own salaries to pay for supplies. I have seen teachers buying clothes, coats, backpacks and countless other things for children who come to school with nothing.
It's not a secret that a teachers salary in America isn't the highest on the list. Teachers don't teach for the money. When I was being called "Miss Ashley" my eyes were opened to a lot of things. They do it because they want to be the one to help a child. They want to be the person a child needs. They want to make a difference. There is no better feeling than when you see a child learn a new skill, learn how to read a new word or just even become confident in who they are as a student.
Teachers aren't begging for riches. They are asking for what they deserve and more importantly what the kids deserve.
